Dating advice courtesy of your friendly neighborhood monkey

Dating advice websites abound with many different kinds of advice: good advice (don’t pick your nose), strange advice (date according to your blood type), not so good advice (Leos dating Leos need to hire domestic helpers). One suggestion that seems to pop up quite frequently is to mimic the body language of your date. He picks up his drink for a sip, you pick up yours. He strokes his hair, you stroke yours. He picks his nose, you pick your nose. You get the idea. As it turns out, in a social interaction context, we humans tend to unintentionally imitate what others are doing. Think of this as a team-building exercise: it’s a behavior that helps establish rapport, empathy and other fuzzy feelings toward each other.

A recent publication in the journal Science shows that behavior matching leading to increased rapport is not exclusive to humans, and it can also occur between different species.

The study looks at capuchin monkeys, a very social primate species. During the experiments, the monkey is given a ball to play with. On either side of the monkey’s cage stands an experimenter. One experimenter is mimicking what the monkey is doing with the ball (poking it, pounding it against the wall, trying to eat it… Mmmmm…), while the other experimenter is also playing with the ball, but not mimicking the monkey. The researchers show that not only do the monkeys look at the imitators more, they also spend more time hanging out close to the imitators and prefer to interact with the imitators in a food exchange game. The authors also did an important series of control experiments to show that these effects were not due to the monkeys perceiving more attention from the imitators.

So why are we subconsciously hard-wired to constantly be playing Simon Says? It is thought that the positive feelings resulting from behavior matching played an important role in human evolution by leading to higher levels of tolerance and by preventing aggressive behavior (to put it simply, by preventing us from beating each other up). The same principle probably applies to primates, and the empathic connection that results from imitation may explain the altruistic tendencies observed in the behavior of capuchin monkeys.

Next time you catch yourself winking back at someone who winked at you, or laughing at a joke you didn’t get because everyone else is laughing, keep in mind it’s for the greater good. After all, even monkeys know that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Scientific Chick readers applying their new found knowledge
(Image from Loldogs)

Reference: Capuchin monkeys display affiliation toward humans who imitate them. (2009) Paukner, A., Suomi, S.J., Visalberghi, E., Ferrari, P.F. Science 325:880-882.

The fountain of youth revisited

Not too long ago, I wrote about my love of brownies and an article on caloric restriction. I wasn’t really planning on bringing up this topic again so soon but a recent Science paper on caloric restriction in monkeys is getting so much media attention that I just had to throw in my two cents.

In the article, a group of American researchers study control and calorie-restricted (30%) monkeys over 20 years. What they show is that the calorie-restricted monkeys have a reduced incidence of age-associated death, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and brain atrophy compared to the control monkeys. From the sounds of it, we can stop looking for the fountain of youth (it’s in Florida, by the way). The media absolutely loves this story, and news reports and videos are quick to claim that caloric restriction increases longevity in our closest cousins, and it must be good for us as well.

First, a disclaimer from the friendly folks at ScientificChick.com: In the recent years, solid, convincing and well-controlled studies have shown some benefits of caloric restriction in various types of experimental subjects ranging from yeasts to humans. I won’t go back into the pros and cons of caloric restriction in this post. There is good evidence out there that it can be beneficial in some instances, and also good evidence that it’s not for everyone.That being said, I believe there are many problems with this particular Science paper on caloric restriction.

In my opinion, a major issue with the findings is that the control monkeys (the ones not on caloric restriction) are fed ad libitum (meaning they can eat as much as they want). You might be able to guess the problem already, but let me give you an example just in case: I have a cat, and if I were to offer him a constant supply of what seems to me like gross, bland cat food, he would keep eating it until he would slip in a food coma. I think this goes for most species, including us (ever heard of the candy jar experiment?). Therefore, it’s very hard to judge if monkeys who eat as much as they want are eating the amount of food they should naturally be eating. Chances are they are eating more (breakfast, lunch and dinner are not served at regular hours in the wild). And this is particularly relevant because eating too much (or obesity) happens to be an important risk factor for all the diseases the study looks at (diabetes, cardiovascular problems, cancer, etc.).

Another issue with the article is that few of the findings show a statistically significant difference between the control and the calorie restricted groups, even though the researchers are studying a reasonably large number of monkeys. When your results are statistically significant, it means that what you are observing is unlikely to have occurred by chance. This concept is a hallmark of solid and convincing science findings and the media should be very careful not to hype findings that aren’t statistically significant. In addition, almost every single news article on this publication claimed that caloric restriction had an effect on longevity. While the study looks at age-associated diseases, the longevity (or life expectancy) parameter is not assessed at all (though the researchers do mention they plan on assessing this in the future).

Lastly, and perhaps most disturbing from my scientist point of view, the lead researcher in this study happens to be co-founder and member of the board of LifeGen Technologies, a company focusing on the impact of dietary interventions on the aging process. A little research on this company made it very clear to me that the more people buy this whole caloric restriction business, the more money the company makes. If that’s not a conflict of interest, I don’t know what is.

Now if you’ll excuse me, a new cupcake store just opened across from my building, and I must significantly increase the quality of my life by going over and eating a cupcake.

My cat, Mr Minou, is not a fan of caloric restriction.

Reference: Caloric restriction delays disease onset and mortality in rhesus monkeys. Colman RJ, Anderson RM, Johnson SC, Kastman EK, Kosmatka KJ, Beasley TM, Allison DB, Cruzen C, Simmons HA, Kemnitz JW, Weindruch R. Science. 2009 Jul 10;325(5937):201-4.